iPhone X hits the spot as fans flock to NY store

Friday, November 03, 2017 - 00:43

Fans flock to Apple's New York store to get their hands on the new iPhone X. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

▲ Hide Transcript

▶ View Transcript

ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)
Long, snaking lines formed outside Apple Inc stores early on Friday as fans flocked to buy the new iPhone X, a turnout that contrasts with the more lacklustre launches for the past two iterations of the premium smartphone.
Strong initial demand underscores Apple's upbeat sales forecast for the year-end holiday shopping season, provided just hours before iPhone X sales began.
In Australia, around 400 people queued outside Apple's flagship store in central Sydney to pay A$1,579 (£933) for the 10th-anniversary model, a glass-and-stainless-steel device that Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook billed as "the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone."
Just 30 people turned up for the September release of the iPhone 8, an incremental update of the iPhone 7.
"It's beautiful bro, what a feeling, I'm excited," builder Bishoy Behman, 18, told Reuters after picking up two iPhone X as the first in line. He said he camped outside the store for a week before paying to improve his place in the queue overnight.
The iPhone X comes a decade after the original iPhone, the product that powered Apple's rise to become the world's biggest technology company with a market capitalisation of $868 billion (£664.2 billion).
The firm opened pre-orders on Oct. 27 and has said demand was "off the charts." The handset features an edge-to-edge display designed for deeper colour rendition and an innovative camera for face-recognition identification.

Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world’s largest international multimedia news provider reaching more than one billion people every day. Reuters provides trusted business, financial, national, and international news to professionals via Thomson Reuters desktops, the world's media organizations, and directly to consumers at Reuters.com and via Reuters TV. Learn more about Thomson Reuters products: